As I post this, there are two glitches in the article. One is that em dashes are appearing as quote marks — and as you know, I use a lot of em dashes. The other is that one sentence on in-database data mining seems unclear to me, and I’ve asked for a small edit to make it clearer what I’m talking about. No doubt both will be cleared up soon.Edit: Doug indeed fixed all that within minutes.

This is an edited article. Other than columns, it may be my first such since the Upside Magazine cover story on AOL over a decade ago. But it was edited with a light and skillful touch. Please don’t hold me responsible for every minor subtlety of emphasis or grammatical nuance. But otherwise I stand behind the opinions, for they are indeed mine.